Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Flash Of Inspiration

I have been keeping track of all the various Topps issues from their first sets of cards in 1948 through 1980 (the last year of the old curved, lower-case Topps logo and also the final year before the Fleer and Donruss baseball hysteria ensued) and would say on average I add a new set to the database maybe once a year these days. So it was quite strange to find two new additions in the same week.

Now it may be that I just missed these sets the first time they were discovered as I have found that many eBay sellers don't bother to identify what year their wares first became known in the hobby but I am not seeing either one listed in any known guides. I'll be a tease and put one set off for next time as it's a bit of a lengthy story compared to the bad boy I want to discuss today.

There are some eBay auctions being run over the past month or so with a set that is unnamed but which I have dubbed Funny Flash Cards. Only a handful of cards have been auctioned (none successfully) and there are, maddeningly, no scans of the obverses. Here is one:

The artwork pegs it around 1968 to my eye and you can see the reverse answers a question on the front, hence my nomenclature. It's hard to see but that bottom left indicia indicates 55 cards in the set. There are some historical themes:

As well as riddles, although this could be math-themed:

I would love to get some front scans.

Were these rejected test sets? Am I missing something glaringly obvious? I ran some scans by Friend o'the Archive Bill Christensen and he had not seen them before and he's seen a lot of obscure stuff! Anyone out there know?